Gunnar Örlygsson – IceMar’s founder, CEO and co-owner, started his career as a fisherman at the young age of 15. He worked on board several Icelandic long liners and trawlers for a ten year period, learning the craft and the business from the inside. Like so many other Icelanders Gunnar comes from a family that have lived off what the surrounding waters have provided. His grandfather was a fisherman in the Northwest of Iceland for 55 years! Fisheries and Seafood is part of many Icelander’s DNA and Gunnar is no exception.
In 2003 Gunnar decided to take the leap and create IceMar with a determination to bring the best of Icelandic seafood to the world. His brother Teitur has been with Gunnar from the beginning and has played a crucial part in creating what IceMar is today. The two brothers still work closely together in the day to day business of IceMar.
Over the years IceMar has grown from being a simple trading company to becoming an international supplier of the highest quality wild and farmed seafood from Iceland.
In early 2022 IceMar joined forces with UK based New England Seafood, cementing a two decade partnership forged on the riverbanks in Iceland and Scotland and through a strong trading relationship between Gunnar and New England Seafood founder Fred Stroyan. Their common passion for fishing as well as for good seafood underpins the relationship.
New England Seafood is the platform for Sealaska Corporation’s Woocheen division’s sustainable foods business Home | Woocheen. Woocheen, meaning “working together” in Tlingit (one of the three native tribes that makes up the ownership of Sealaska) is a ground breaking business being formed and developed to transform Ocean Health.
Through a combination of Hydro science and sustainable seafood our aim is to restore wilderness, health and balance to our planets, oceans and ecosystems by 2050. The work we do in our Hydro Science business restoring waterways, analysing groundwater and mineral content, cleaning up the oceans and, through our innovative drilling and construction businesses, laying the foundations for the clean energy movement, perfectly complements the sustainable seafood side of our Group which aims to promote increased consumption of sustainably harvested Wild Capture and responsibly farmed seafood. We understand that eating more seafood is one of the best things that we can do to reduce our carbon output, water usage and improve human health. Our challenge is to inspire and educate consumers so that they are motivated to follow this direction, as well as continuing to confront and deal with the big ESG challenges that our Industry must face.